VEXING QUESTION: WHO COULD RULE AFGHANS IF TALIBAN REGIME IS ONE DAY
OVERTHROWN?

Compromise Government May Work, But Concern Would Grow in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Toppling Afghanistan's Taliban regime could turn out
to be the easy part. After that, the U.S. and its allies would have to
create a stable successor government and rebuild a nation shattered by
decades of war.

Over the weekend, Mohammed Zahir Shah, the 86-year-old former monarch who
fled Afghanistan after a 1973 coup, met in Rome with representatives of the
country's anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. The two sides agreed to a unified
effort to oust Kabul's leaders, whom Washington accuses of harboring Osama
bin Laden, its top suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S.

The Rome agreement is the kind of Afghan marriage of convenience that has
gone famously wrong in the past. But for many of the king's fellow exiles,
such as Prof. Rasul Amin, who taught political science at Kabul University
until he fled to Peshawar after the Soviet invasion in 1979, the prospect
of the king's return brings back memories of a happier Afghanistan under
his rule.

"We had a parliament. We had good education. We had so many lady
professors, so many ladies in the parliament and in the cabinet," says Mr.
Amin. "Nobody cared about politics or religion -- they were just thinking
about the progress of Afghanistan."

Still, the interests of more powerful neighbors have always buffeted
Afghanistan. Pakistan, to the east, wants nothing to do with the loose
coalition of forces that have fought the Taliban since being ousted from
Kabul in 1996. "Pakistan's support of the Taliban has left it at odds with
the Northern Alliance," says Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, president of the
Islamabad Policy Research Institute. "If the Northern Alliance is pushed to
form a government in Kabul, it will be very problematic for Pakistan."

A compromise government -- initially under the auspices of the United
Nations or Organization of the Islamic Conference -- that combines a
figurehead king with moderate elements of the Taliban and the Northern
Alliance might work, analysts say. As in Macedonia, however,
demilitarization of the warring factions would remain a potentially
intractable issue in a country that has seen more than 20 years of
internecine conflict.

Although there have been periodic attempts to assess Afghanistan's
long-term development needs, efforts in recent years have focused on
meeting the immediate relief challenges posed by some four million
refugees, mostly in Pakistan and Iran, and at least as many people at risk
of starvation inside the country. War would exacerbate those problems in
the near term. But presuming the end of the Taliban would win their
successors some kind of international recognition, the next step will
involve rebuilding the basics of Afghanistan.

The country needs roads, bridges, a functioning educational system and food
to feed a population that faces mass starvation. "The Americans fought the
Japanese, and now Japan is a great power. They fought Germany, and now
Germany is a great power. I think what Afghanistan needs is a small sort of
Marshall Plan," says Mr. Amin, referring to the post-World War II rescue
plan for Europe devised by U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall.

The dollar figures being discussed for such a plan range in the low
billions. "There should not be a blank check. There has to be a
comprehensive program with conditions, like the [International Monetary
Fund] programs we have seen," says Atizaz Ahmad, an economist at
Islamabad's Quaid-i-Azam University. "The main problem in Afghanistan is
that the educated class, the technocrats, have moved out. One of the first
things to do is attract those people back."

No one knows for sure what it would take to attract them. Knut Ostby, an
official with the United Nations Development Program for Afghanistan, says
there was great hope at the end of the Soviet occupation in 1989 that the
country would reverse the flow of its brain drain.

"People thought the six million refugees from outside the country would
return, that the war would stop, that there would be a government in a
stable Kabul," he said. Instead, Afghanistan descended into a decade of
civil war.

In 1993, a plan was created with aid agencies and the World Bank for
reconstruction. The estimated cost at the time was $640 million for two
years, excluding major infrastructure projects. But new fighting, this time
with the emergent Taliban, held the process hostage, says Mr. Ostby.

Most agree that much of any rescue package for Afghanistan would have to be
earmarked for rebuilding basic infrastructure. Cities like Kabul are in
ruins and would need millions of dollars to be restored. But 85% of the
population relies on agriculture in some way, and "obviously that sector
has to be a top priority," says Mr. Ostby.

What does a landlocked Afghanistan have to offer for export? Poppies, the
foundation of opium and heroin, were the country's major export earner
until a crackdown by the Taliban last year. But in the 1970s, 35% of the
country's foreign export earnings came from dried fruits and nuts. Other
export possibilities include semiprecious stones, as well as undeveloped
natural-gas reserves, he says.

Whatever solution is presented for Afghanistan, "you have to have a high
degree of Afghan ownership," Mr. Ostby says. "I see the challenge as
building something out of nothing, and Afghans can do that if just given a
chance."

Write to Scott Neuman at scott.neuman@awsj.com